Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Bees solve math problems faster than humans

During these Christmas Holidays, we have been spending time with relatives.

Today, while eating lunch with kiddos, who are so well behaved that it is hard to believe, we discussed several things.

One of the questions we asked the almost 10 year old (he will be 10 today as you read this DIT), was

“... have you memorized your multiplication tables yet?”

He did know some of the answers such as 12 times 12 is 144 but alas did not know a lot of the others.

So one of the adults began to show him how to do the Nines multiplication.

It was really a complex thing and imho it would be easier just to memorize the 9 table.

The kiddo apparently had the same thought in that he said “that makes my head hurt”.

Apparently on the same wavelength the other adults at the table encouraged him to just memorize the multiplication tables and to do it as soon as possible, pointing out that this is something one needs to know forever unlike some ‘facts’ that we are told to learn in school.

Later as I pondered on this conversation I remembered an article that I had recently read about bees and how smart they are.

How smart are they? you ask.

Well, the are so smart that they can solve math problems faster than humans and even faster than computers!